The Geography Blog focusing on all things geography: human, physical, technical, space, news, and geopolitics. Also known as Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze!
Written by a former National Geographic employee who also proudly served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Sunday, August 22, 2010

Frontline: The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

In some parts of the Muslim world there is a weird double standard with homosexual. My observations in Iraq and Saudi Arabia as well as what I have read about for my journey to Afghanistan I allowed me to make this rule of thumb: in Muslim countries it is wrong to be homosexual but it is allowable to do homosexual sex as long as one does not enjoy it for the sex. The sex is done to dominate or to build bonds between men (in a brotherhood way). Sickeningly, it is allowable for two men to have sex as long as they do it with a boy. Straight up pedophilia is not only allowable but in some parts even encouraged. Boys are seen as play things, something less valuable and less important than men to God.

Afghanistan has its own tradition of man-boy pedophilia. The tradition of dancing boys, featured in the Kite Runner, has little boys being entertainment slaves for parties, orgies, and sex. Frontline covers this practice in the video below.